Europe

WARSAW: Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo reiterated on Friday that Poland wanted Britain to stay in the European Union and said her cabinet supported some of its demands on reforming the block. "We fully support the prime minister's proposals regarding solutions that are aimed at improving competitiveness, removing red tape and granting proper significance to national parliaments," Szydlo said in a joint statement with her British counterpart David Cameron in Warsaw. Szydlo also said she saw a need to discuss the question of welfare benefits for Polish citizens living in Britain. Cameron said Britain wanted to see a "full strategic partnership between Poland and the United Kingdom".Copyright Reuters, 2016 ...

LONDON: Prime Minister David Cameron is playing a high-stakes game which will decide his place in political history with negotiations aimed at preventing Britain from leaving the EU in a looming referendum, experts say.Cameron landed himself in his current position by promising in 2013 to hold a referendum on Europe if he won the 2015 election. That was a bid to unite his party, long divided on the issue.Paradoxically for a leader who is arguing ...

WASHINGTON: The International Monetary Fund does not wish to slap "draconian measures" on hard-up Greece but wants more government progress on pension reform, IMF chief Christine Lagarde said Thursday.Lagarde spoke as Greece was hit by a general strike that brought tens of thousands of people into the streets in protest over pension reforms, a key part of Greece's latest economic bailout by the European Union."I really don't like it when we're portrayed as this draconian, ...

LONDON: The humanitarian corridor between Turkey and Aleppo in Syria has been cut off as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces seek to inflict a siege of starvation on the city, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Thursday.Speaking at a news conference after a Syria donor conference in London, Davutoglu said the forces were seeking to do the same to Aleppo as they did to the besieged town of Madaya, where dozens have starved to ...

DUBLIN: Support for the party of Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny slipped in the first opinion poll published since the current election campaign started, the latest sign the election may fail to produce a stable government. It is the latest in a series of polls that have indicated the current coalition of Kenny's centre-right Fine Gael and centre-left Labour would fail to secure enough votes for a majority. Ireland votes on Feb. 26, Kenny announced ...

LISBON: The International Monetary Fund expects Portugal's fiscal position to loosen in 2016, for the second year running, and for economic growth to slow as the country remains weighed down by high debts, contrary to more optimistic government forecasts. In a statement after a monitoring visit to Portugal following the country's 2011-2014 bailout, the IMF said it expected Portugal's budget deficit this year at 3.2 percent of GDP, well above 2.6 percent envisaged by the ...

ANKARA: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said Syrian peace talks in Geneva, which were suspended on Wednesday, were pointless while President Bashar al-Assad's forces and Russia continued their attacks in the country. UN envoy Staffan de Mistura halted his efforts to conduct the talks after the Syrian army, backed by Russian air strikes, advanced against rebel forces north of Aleppo, choking opposition supply lines from Turkey to the city. "Russia continues to kill people in Syria. ...